According to the Miami Herald, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said yesterday that he supports a U.S. invasion of Iran and institution of regime change as a last resort to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. Sen. Graham likens the situation to Pandora’s box, saying that he would rather open the box than have it emptied by Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon. Sen. Graham would also prefer the United States invade Iran, because our military is much stronger than Israel’s.

While I agree that it would be bad to put a nuclear weapon in the hands of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, I think it would be a much worse thing to start another war. While support for our allies in the region is important, starting a war while we are still at war in Afghanistan, still have troops in Iraq, and have a fragile situation in Korea to worry about, is a very bad idea.

Remember what happened in 2003 when we started a regime change war with Iraq? We did so many things wrong and created an insurgency that still exists today. While we assume the people of Iran dislike Ahmadinejad, we also thought that about Saddam. Then, a few years later, the people started hating American forces worse and essentially switched sides. What’s to stop the people of Iran from turning on us?

Iran is a youthful nation, with many you adults who are very out spoken and even revolutionary. Why not just aid them in over-throwing their own government? That’s exactly what Secretary Clinton suggested yesterday. ABC News quoted Secretary Clinton saying “I can only hope that there will be some effort inside Iran, by responsible civil and religious leaders to take hold of the apparatus of the state.”

That effort may need a nudge, and the United States is in a great position to do that. A ‘nudge’ could consist of many different methods of instigating a youth movement to enact regime change, including clandestine operations from our black ops folks. This would avoid another war, and ultimately protect soldiers’ lives and citizens’ dollars.